Asus has elected to update its Republic of Gamers G73 gaming laptop with a new graphics card – the new model is called G73JW. Strangely it’s not the Nvidia GTX 480M but the GTX460M – a model that is (at least in theory) slightly slower than the existing ATI Mobility Radeon HD5870 that is included with current models.
Sure, it’s a newer card, and possibly more energy efficient (but probably not), but calling it an upgrade is a bit of a stretch.The G73JH sells for as little as $1,549, while the G73JW will set you back roughly $200 more. To be fair, it looks like the JW variant comes with a Blu-ray combo drive though.
A lot of people who were hoping for an upgrade to Nvidia’s high-end GTX480M for the G73 are no doubt dissapointed.
On the other hand, the 15-inch G51JX also gets bumped up to G53JW, with identical core components as the G73JW except for the hard drive (the G73 has room for two of them). In this case the upgrade is a lot more interesting and relevant, as the GTX 460M is at least 20% faster than the current GTS 360M.
